CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Meta, the owner of the social media juggernauts Facebook and Instagram, is building a data center in one of Cheyenne’s business park districts, local and state officials confirmed Tuesday.
News of Meta’s presence in Cheyenne was unveiled at a gathering for Wyoming officials and media Tuesday morning at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Event Center. At the event, Mayor Patrick Collins revealed that Meta is the company behind the enigmatic “Project Cosmo,” which has been in development for five years.
“I’ve known this company’s name for almost two years now, and anybody who knows me knows it’s been killing me not to be able to say it,” Collins said at Tuesday’s event. “I’m really proud to welcome Meta to Cheyenne and Wyoming.”
The 715,000-square-foot facility will cost around $800 million to construct and is estimated to bring 100 operational jobs and more than 1,000 construction jobs to Cheyenne, said Brad Davis, director of community and economic development at Meta. In addition, the facility will feed millions of dollars in local and state taxes to the Cowboy State.
“Meta Cheyenne’s data center will be optimized for our AI workloads as part of the highly advanced infrastructure that helps bring our technologies and services to life,” Davis said. “But it’s important to us that the impact of our data centers is not only felt online. We want to make sure that we are creating a positive impact at the local level in communities just like Cheyenne, because our mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. And for Meta, that starts right here.”
Meta is also striving to source labor and material locally, Davis added.
In addition to Davis and Laramie County local officials, Gov. Mark Gordon, Sen. John Barrasso and Sen. Cynthia Lummis each welcomed Meta to the Cowboy State. Gordon stated that not only is Meta about the future, but so is Wyoming.
“We have energy in abundance,” Gordon said. “In fact, we know that energy is not a constraint on our future. We, with innovation rather than regulation, can power this nation forward, and we’re very happy to have that. … We are an all-of-the-above, all-of-government approach to making the world a little better. You’re very much a part of that.”
Leading off of Gordon’s comments about energy, Sen. Barrasso couldn’t have agreed more.
“Meta, you have made the right decision to come here,” Barrasso said. “You work with [Cheyenne] LEADS, you work with these people — you’re not going to find better people anywhere. … We are America’s energy breadbasket. We’re an energy powerhouse. We have it here.”
Sen. Lummis echoed the sentiments regarding Wyoming’s potential for energy output. She stated the state produces 12 times more energy than it consumes. Overall, though, she said Wyoming’s future lies in its potential to generate industries for residents by residents.
“We can provide affordable, abundant, redundant energy provided by people who can make it cleaner than anywhere in the world,” Lummis said. “So we have much to be proud of here. And we want you to be part of it.”
Meta has purchased 916 acres of land on Cheyenne’s High Plains Business Park for the data center, Davis said. It will take several years before construction of the facility is complete, according to Davis.
